Unreal Engine 6: Building a Unified Metaverse

Epic's Roblox, Fortnite Metaverse Planned Alongside Unreal Engine 6Epic CEO Tim Sweeney Envisions an Interoperable Metaverse and Interoperable Economy

Sweeney informed The Verge that Epic possesses the financial resources to realize this vision throughout the decade. "We have substantial funding compared to almost any company in the industry and are investing strategically, scaling our efforts as needed," he explained. "We believe we're ideally positioned to execute our plans for the remainder of this decade and achieve all our goals at our current scale."

Epic's next phase will integrate its advanced development tools, Unreal Engine, with the Unreal Editor for Fortnite—effectively creating a powerful Unreal Engine 6 hybrid. Epic aims to accomplish this within several years. "The true potential will be unlocked when we combine these two, merging the power of our high-end game engine with the user-friendliness of [Unreal Editor for Fortnite]," Sweeney stated. "That will take several years. Upon completion, that will be Unreal Engine 6."

Sweeney further explained, "We announced that we’re working with Disney to build a Disney ecosystem that’s theirs, but it fully interoperates with the Fortnite ecosystem. And what we’re talking about with Unreal Engine 6 is the technology foundation that’s going to make that possible for everybody. Triple-A game developers to indie game developers to Fortnite creators achieving that same sort of thing."

However, Sweeney said that it hasn't initiated "those sorts of discussions" with Roblox and Minecraft owner Microsoft yet, "but we will, over time," he added. "The whole premise here is that players are gravitating towards games which they can play together with all their friends, and players are spending more on digital items in games that they trust they’re going to play for a long time," Sweeney said, detailing a revenue-sharing model he hopes to advocate.

"If you’re just experimenting with a game, why would you spend money to buy an item that you’re never going to use again? If we have an interoperable economy, then that will increase player trust that today’s spending on buying digital goods results in things that they’re going to own for a long period of time, and it will work in all the places they go."

"We’re trying to innovate. We’re just trying to expand something we already see in Fortnite. That’s all we’re doing—really focusing on what we know works. That’s what Tim is saying," Persson said in a prior interview with The Verge where the executives explained how this metaverse might function.

Persson added, "If you play with your friends, if you have more options, you stay longer, play more, you enjoy your time more. The formula is quite simple." As Sweeney explained, "in the game industry, there are enough ecosystems and publishers with their own ecosystems that there isn’t any chance of one company completely dominating them all, as has happened in the smartphone market."